Project Management Learning: The Impact of National Culture on Project Performance

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Project Management Learning: The Impact of National

Culture on Project Performance

Master Thesis, MSc Supply Chain Management

University of Groningen , Faculty of Economics and Business June 24, 2019

Yu Zhang S2757524

e-mail: y.zhang.50@student.rug.nl Supervisor/ University of Groningen

Dr. S.Boscari

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Content

Abstract 3 1. Introduction 4 2. Theoretical background 7 2.1. Project Management (PM) 7 2.1.1. Project success 7 2.2. National culture 9 2.3. Impact of NC on PM 10 3. Methodology 13

3.1. Data collection and sample 13

3.2. Variables and Scales 16

3.2.1. Independent variable: National culture 16

3.2.2. Dependent variable: Project management performance 16 3.2.3. Control variable: Nationality of project managers and professors 16

4. Analysis and results 17

4.1. Measurement validity and reliability 17

4.2. Impact of national culture on project management performance 18

5. Discussion 22

5.1. Culture dimensions with positive impacts 22

5.2. Culture dimensions with negative impacts 23

5.3. Findings related to project performance aspects 23

6. Conclusion 26

6.1. Contributions 26

6.2. Limitations and future research 27

Reference 28

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Abstract

Purpose_{: The purpose of this research is to} provide a more comprehensive analysis on the

influence of national culture on project management performance.

Design/Methodology/Approach_{: A mixed method is used in this paper. First, a survey is}

conducted in order to test the relationship between cultural dimensions and project management performance aspects. In addition, interviews are also made in order to gather more detailed information and cases to support the survey answers.

Findings_{: Key findings of this paper are: (1) Masculinity and long-term orientation tend to}

have positive impact on project performance when significant. (2)Uncertainty avoidance tend to have negative impact on project performance when significant. (3)Project quality, risk and cost are with major impact by national culture. (4) Project schedule and scope management are not affected by national culture.

Originality/value: The theoretical contribution of this paper is that the research eliminated

the limitation of country/industry specificity by including more countries and industries. This provides a more comprehensive and generalizable result. In addition, as the managerial contribution, this study provides suggestions about members from which countries are more suitable for multinational projects, and with which nationalities could be more difficult.

Keywords_{: Project management; Project Management; Multicultural projects; National}

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1. Introduction

Projects are becoming more multinational and cross-cultural both technically and relationally (Fellows and Liu, 2016). The diversity of environment, team members as well as stakeholders increased uncertainty in projects operations and difficulty in achieving high performance. Generally, an individual’s national culture influences their thinking, perception, and communication in project teams (Fellows and Liu, 2016; Huang, 2016). Lack of understanding of cultural differences hinders successful collaboration (Marco, Alin, and Taylor, 2012; Okhuysen and Bechy, 2009). In 1983, Hofstede pointed out that project management practice has to recognize the national differences and the influence of national culture on project performance. Because the principle of project management would be hard to become universal and the hidden differences between people and cultures challenge the performance of global projects teams. Due to this reason, the development of a more comprehensive understanding of the influence of national culture on project management can benefit the multicultural project management practice.

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process. In addition, the experiences from past projects cannot easily be transferred to later projects. These characteristics allow researchers to have a better study of cultural influence. Hofstede (1986) demonstrated 5 cultural dimensions that describe the effects of a society's culture on the values of its members, including individualism-collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, masculinity-femininity, and long-term orientation.

Previous studies have demonstrated that culture lined with project management performance. However, the major limitation of the current research is that most of the works only focused on a part of the culture dimensions or project performance aspects. For example, Bredillet, Yatim, and Ruiz (2010) showed that, in general, project management is better deployed in low power distance and low uncertainty avoidance countries, such as the Netherlands and Singapore. Furthermore, individualistic and masculinity cultures have a negative influence on project management (Bredillet et al., 2010; Liu et al., 2015). Secondly, some mixed findings are identified through existing researches. For instance, some researchers stated that people from individualistic countries are less emphasize project integration management (eg. Sounder and Jenssen, 1999; Shore and Cross, 2005), such as project define and combine. While other scholars argued the performance of project integration does not relate to individualistic culture (eg. Bredillet, Yatim, and Ruiz, 2010). In terms of power distance, Bredillet et al. (2010), Rees-Caldwell and Pinnington (2013), and Oswald et al. (2018) confirmed it has a negative impact on project integration management, while Shore and Cross (2005) announced the opposite. In addition, most of the existing studies only focused on a few countries and industries. For instance, Bony (2010) considered differences between the Netherlands and France, and Naor et al. only focused on the manufacturing industry. These facts make me question the generalizability of these findings.

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management, project, schedule management, project cost management, project quality management, project risk management, project communications management) are analyzed and discussed.

In order to provide a comprehensive analysis compared to previous studies and test some mixed findings. I focus on the research question:

How does national culture affect project performance?

To answer this research question, I conduct mixed method research. First, I managed a research survey that collected data of project team members from 43 countries and more than 10 different industries, and tried to identify and test how each cultural dimension impacts project management performance aspects. In addition to that, interviews were also made in order to gather more detailed information and cases to support the survey answers.

There are several theoretical contributions of this study. First, this research provided a more comprehensive analysis of the impact of national culture on project performance, using the five cultural dimensions and seven project performance aspects mentioned in previous parts. Second, this paper eliminated the bias of previous studies which only focus on a few countries and industry. This reduced the influence of country and industry specificity and increased the generalizability of findings. The managerial implication of this paper is also significant. First, countries that are more suitable to conduct multinational projects are identified. In addition, this paper provides suggestions to project managers of multinational project teams in order to improve project performance.

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2. Theoretical background

This section provides the main theoretical perspectives underpinning the concept of project management and national culture. The relationship and interaction between these two concepts are also introduced.

2.1. Project Management (PM)

Project management (PM) has been widely studied by scholars for decades (eg. Cleland and King, 1983; Melton, 2014). In PMI (1996), PM is defined as “the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities in order to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and expectations from a project”. Normally, projects are not a routine operation in organizations. Instead, a project is unique with specific goals and objectives (PMI, 2014). Nowadays, companies use projects as a mechanism to deliver benefits and create added-value to their daily operations (Melton, 2007), while they also realize projects normally consists with high risks (Williams, 2016). According to Cleland and King (1983), PM is a complex effort within a specific group of people with the purpose of achieving a certain goal and has a set schedule and budget. It also requires a set of knowledge, skills, and techniques to meet project requirements.

Miller and Hobbs (2005) emphasize the importance of the flexibility of the strategy process in PM, as it allows organizations to adapt to changing project environment, and be able to deal with unforeseen events. While in terms of the global project management, Huang and Chuang (2014) brought up the concept of harmony and claimed three factors should be considered equally in order to ensure the operation of the global project, being industry, people, and culture. Handling the three factors efficiently is an important ability to good project managers (Huang, 2016).

2.1.1. Project success

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project success. Baccarini (1999) distinguished two components of project success: project management success and product success, which emphasis on the project process and the project’s final product respectively. A project is recognized to be successful when the project management targets are realized, to illustrate, the project is finished on time, within budget and achieved agreed quality (Baccarini, 1999). In addition, a project is successful if it has expected effects, such as solved initial problems and delivered satisfactory services (Jetu, Riedl, and Roithmayr, 2011).

However, Williams(2016) argued that the definition of project success should not be simplified as meeting cost, schedule and performance target, instead, it should be more considered as a multi-dimensional definition, involving both objective and subjective criteria. He characterized project success in five ways: efficiency, effectiveness, relevance, impact, and sustainability. Williams also highlights the possibility that different stakeholders, such as senior managers, project teams, and recipient stakeholders, may have a different definition of project success. While project success is related to a common agreement among stakeholders (Turner, 2004).

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Table 1

Project Management Knowledge Area and Definition (PMI, 2008) Knowledge area Definition

Project Integration Management

Processes and project management activities within the project is identified, defined, combined, unified, and coordinated.

Project Scope Management

Project includes all the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully.

Project Schedule Management

The project is completed in time. Project Cost

Management

Project planning, estimating, budgeting, financing, funding, managing, and controlling costs are completed within the approved budget.

Project Quality Management

Project incorporate with the organization’s quality policy. Project Risk

Management

Processes involves risk management planning, identification, analysis, response planning, response implementation, and monitoring risk on a project.

Project

Communications Management

The project required to ensure timely and appropriate planning, collection, creation, distribution, storage, retrieval, management, control, monitoring, and ultimate disposition of project information.

2.2. National culture

In the past four decades, scholars developed several models for measuring the dimensions of the national culture of management teams (Hofstede 1983; Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 1997; Javidan and House, 2001). According to Hofstede (1983), culture is collective mental programming: it is that part of our conditioning that we share with other members of our nation, regions or groups. In 1980, Hofstede initially stated four national cultural dimensions: power distance (PDI), individualism/collectivism (IDV), masculinity/femininity (MAS), and uncertainty avoidance (UAI). In 2001, he extended the culture dimensions model with a fifth dimension --- long/short-term orientation (LTO). These terms are widely used social sciences (Liu et al., 2013) and project management studies (Hofstede, 1983).

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distinguished very clearly. In addition, Hofstede emphasized the importance of nationality. On the one hand, nations potentially identified people by history, government, legal systems as well as education systems. On the other hand, nations are important sociologically, which symbolize people’s value, such as their beliefs.

As the most used dimensions in PM studies, I recognized, however, that the model is also criticized by many researchers (McSweeney, 2002; Signorini et al., 2009). The criticisms were mainly focused on the following aspects: first, the dimensions are not able to present the richness of cultures. Second, culture is not constant, it will change and evolve over time. While these criticisms are not effective in this study. First, in this research, countries are able to be distinguished by five Hofstede cultural dimensions. Second, as Hofstede is the most widely used culture dimensions in project management research (Guo, Cheung, and Leung, 2012), it is easier to make comparisons with the results of previous studies. And thirdly, Hofstede’s national culture dimensions are the most validated in research (Ojiako et al., 2012).

Table 2

Hofstede cultural dimensions in PM (Hofstede, 1983)

Cultural dimension Description

Individualism-collectivism What is the relationship between an individual and his or her colleagues. Power distance How society deals with inequality.

Uncertainty avoidance How society deals with the fact that time only runs one way Masculinity-femininity What is the division of roles between the sexes in society Long/short-term orientation

(LTO)

Whether a person focus on future or present

2.3. Impact of NC on PM

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project performance. Second, power distance and uncertainty avoidance also influence project management significantly. In a project team, people normally have at least two hierarchies. And the performance is expected to be better if the members come from a culture which is tolerant of ambiguity and sensitive to cultural conflicts.

As mentioned in the introduction, numerous mixed findings were found through previous researches. Under individualism, researchers already studied its relationship with project integration, risk management, communication, and quality. Individualism was confirmed to have a negative impact on project communication and quality management (Flynn and Saladin, 2006; Power et al., 2010). In addition, some scholars stated that individualism has a negative effect on project integration management (Sounder and Jenssen,1999; Shore and Cross, 2005; Flynn and Saladin, 2006), while Bredillet, Yatim, and Ruiz (2010) found the impact of individualism is not significant on project integration management. These studies of mixed findings were conducted under different contexts. Papers concluded a negative effect only researched few countries, such as Shore and Cross (2005) only took examples from the US, France, Germany, Japan, and Russia, while Bredillet, Yatim, and Ruiz (2010) included the data from seventy-four countries. Another conflicting result was found in project risk management aspect. Li et al. (2013) stated a positive relationship between individualism and risk management, while Liu et al. (2015) argued the opposite. The main difference about this two pieces of research is also the number of example countries, as Liu et al. (2015) studied in 4 countries, while Liu et al. (2015) researched 35 countries. This difference might be the underlying reason for conflicting results. To verify the validity of the relationship, I include more countries from different regions in this research.

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management (shown in Appendix 1 and Appendix 6). The cause of this conflict might be a different emphasis on Western and Asian countries.

Scholars clarified a positive relationship between power distance and project risk and communication, and negative relationship with project scope and schedule (Rees-Caldwell and Pinnington, 2013; Liu et al., 2015; Flynn and Saladin, 2006). However, conflicting results were remained in project integration management (shown in Appendix 1).

Masculinity was stated to have no significant influence on project risk management (Liu et al., 2015). Moreover, Flynn and Saladin (2006) found it has a positive effect on project integration management, however, other scholars argued this impact is not significant, or even negative (Sounder and Jenssen, 1999; Bredillet, Yatim, and Ruiz, 2010). In the research, Flynn and Saladin focused on manufacturing plants in the U.S., Japan, Germany, Italy and England, Bredillet et al. (2010) analyzed data from 74 countries, while Sounder and Jenssen only studied the United States and Scandinavian area. Here, I included more Asian countries in the database to verify the result. In terms of long-term orientation, Shore and Cross (2005) argued its positive impact on project cost management. And the influence is not significant on risk management (Liu et al., 2015).

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3. Methodology

In this section, I elaborate in more detail on the method of this research, including research method, unit of analysis, and data collection. This thesis is a part of a bigger project of project management studies and is focused on a quantitative aspect. Due to this reason, the questionnaire formulation and data collection via surveys and interviews are conducted as teamwork.

3.1. Data collection and sample

This research uses two sources of data collection: the data from Chinese project managers are gathered from survey questionnaires as well as interviews. And the data from Italian and British project managers are secondary data employed from the University of Groningen (RUG) database. In order to ensure the consistency of data, the survey questionnaire used in the research was adopted from the existing research of RUG. Adding onto previous data collected from practitioners and professors on project management in Europe, the data from China is expected to bring more insights into the influence of Asian cultures.

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In Part A of the questionnaire, we asked about the general information about the respondent, such as age, gender, and working experience. Part B was about their observation of team members’ rigor in project management. The questionnaire items covered specific areas of project performance, being scope, integration, schedule, cost, quality, risk, and communication. Upon agreement to participate in this research, project managers can fill in the questionnaires by themselves and send back via email. In order to have more respondents from China, the survey questionnaire was translated into the Chinese language and was translated back in English after filled in by respondents. Concerning the accuracy, two Chinese team members did the interview and translation together.

In order to get more detailed information and cases to support the survey answers, we also conducted in-depth interviews. All the participants were interviewed through Skype or voice call. In this session, participants were asked to clarify their survey answers by providing examples. Further, we were also interested in their general opinion in the relationship between national culture and project performance. In the following part of this thesis, the cases are provided to support the discussion.

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Table 3 Sample description Frequency Percent Asian 11 26.2 European 25 59.5 American 4 9.5 African 1 2.4 Oceanian 1 2.4 Total 42 100

There are 38 participants responded to the questionnaire. 79.9% of the respondents are male, 20.1% are female. 59% of the respondents are practitioners (project manager), 12.4% are professors, and 28.6% are both practitioner and professor. About 53% of the participants are Italian, 27.8% are British, and 19.2% are Chinese.

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3.2. Variables and Scales

3.2.1. Independent variable: National culture

This research uses the Hofstede cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 1983) data on national culture value for the countries of project team members. The corresponding set of values was gathered from the website Geert Hofstede (geerthofstede.com), which was based on Hofstede study. There were 43 nationalities mentioned in the questionnaire (see Appendix 8.1), and they were presented with its own national culture values according to features on power distance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation.

However, for some countries, such as Cyprus, Albania, and Bosnia, the Hofstede index were not available. These countries were deleted from the database. And for countries like Iceland, the national cultural value were not complete. In this case, this research only considered the available part and excluded the country from the data analysis when the value was not available.

3.2.2. Dependent variable: Project management performance

The book “Project Management Body of Knowledge” (PMBOK, 2017) identified seven knowledge areas to assess project management performance: integration, scope, time, cost, risk, communication, communication, and quality. The respondents replied to the questionnaire items by reflecting whether one nationality is more rigorous or less rigorous on a certain performance area. I coded more rigorous performance as 1, less rigorous as -1, and not mentioned nationalities as 0.

3.2.3. Control variable: Nationality of project managers and professors

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nationality of the interviewees of this research, it is possible to minimize the influence of cognitive bias caused by different nationalities of respondents.

In this research, respondents are from China, the UK, or Italy. Table 5 displays the national culture values for these three countries. From the values, it is clear that the national cultures of China, the UK, and Italy are contrasting with each other. For example, China has a high score in power distance and low score in individualism. While the UK has a low score in power distance and high in individualism. Italy has moderate power distance individualism features. With dissimilar national cultures, the influence of the control variable is extra obvious.

Table 5

National culture values according to Hofstede

Culture dimensions China The UK Italy

Power distance 80 35 50

Individualism / collectivism 20 89 76

Masculinity/ femininity 66 66 70

Uncertainty avoidance 30 35 75

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4. Analysis and results

4.1. Measurement validity and reliability

Content validity refers to the test of content in relation to a defined domain of knowledge (Crocker, 2015). In other words, whether a measure represents all the aspects of an announced construct. In this paper, it stands for whether the data gathered from questionnaires matches with research purposes. To ensure content validity, I checked the data validity as well as reliability before further data analysis. Crocker (2015) illustrated that content validity can be checked by using expert judges to inspect the domain description. In this research, three professors at the university have read the research proposal and assessed content validity. In addition, this research is a part of a bigger research project, so the questionnaire followed the content of previous studies and made minor changes in order to acquire suitable information.

4.2. Impact of national culture on project management performance

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Table 6

Model significance and control variable

Without IV With IV

R2 _Adjusted_R2 _sig _R2 _Adjusted_R2 _sig

Integration 0.144 0.021 0.104 0.327 0.107 0.001** Scope 0.129 0.017 0.164 0.193 0.037 0.326 Communication 0.033 0.001 0.891 0.234 0.055 0.096* Risk 0.046 0.002 0.794 0.349 0.122 0.000*** Schedule 0.138 0.036 0.109 0.352 0.124 0.000*** Cost 0.130 0.017 0.161 0.219 0.048 0.067** Quality 0.106 0.011 0.295 0.307 0.094 0.004** ***p<0.01 **p<0.05 *p<0.1

Table 6 summarizes the overall results of the analysis. The overall model significance is illustrated by the F-test results. According to O’ Gorman (2001), F-test of the most powerful tool to test the fitness of statistical models to a data set, regardless of the number of blocks. The squared multiple correlations ( R2) indicates the amount of variance a model is explained. Due to the increased number of independent variables would influence the value of R2, the value of adjusted R2 is also taken into account. The left part of Table 5 reports the regression analysis with only the dummy variables (control variables) and shows that the models are not significant for all of the seven project performance aspects. The right part of Table 5 shows the regression analysis with independent variables. Except for project scope management, all the models are significant. Both R2and adjusted R2increased significantly after independent variables were added. That means the dependent variables can be better explained by the models.

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comprehensiveness. Table 7 reports the linear regression results for national culture dimensions, performance aspects, significance, and coefficients.

Project quality management is positively affected by long-term orientation (p=0.009) and masculinity (p=0.072). Project communication management is also positively influenced by long-term orientation (p=0.085). The linear regression showed that national culture does not significantly influence project schedule management. Individualism is found to have a positive impact on project risk management (p=0.085) and masculinity (p=0.097). Project cost management is positively affected by masculinity (p=0.042), while negatively impacted by uncertainty avoidance. Project scope management is not significantly influenced by national culture.

Table 7

Results of Linear regression

Project performance Culture dimensions B sig

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5. Discussion

This paper investigated the influence of national culture on project performance by addressing the research question: How does national culture affect project performance? Overall, the results show that masculinity, long-term orientation, and uncertainty avoidance has a significant influence on project performance. However, there are differences existing between the results of this paper and the previous studies. Table 8 displays the comparisons of the results. Symbol “*” is used to show results consistent with previous studies, “**” shows results inconsistent with the previous studies, and “***” indicates the new findings. In the following part, I will discuss the main findings of this paper and compare them with the previous researches.

5.1. Culture dimensions with positive impacts

One interesting finding is that _{masculinity always has a positive impact on project} performance when significant. In this paper, masculinity is found to positively influence project quality, risk, and cost management. As mentioned in the previous part, high masculinity culture makes a sharp division between what man and woman should do, people from high masculinity culture emphasizes performance and success (Hofstede, 1986). This can explain the phenomenon mentioned in an interview about Japanese project team members. Japanese project team members like to hold meetings, discussion project progress, problems, and potential risks. In addition, they state a clear date of due in every working email and follow the plan strictly. A look at the national culture masculinity dimension allows us to have a clearer view: Japan has MAS=95. This complies with the findings of this paper. However, this result was not found in the previous papers. To the best of my knowledge, no existing paper has discussed the aforementioned relationships. This inconsistency may be explained by the fact that this paper included more countries as well as industries in the analysis, which decreased the specificity and allowed more significant results.

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countries are expected to be more rigorous in project quality and communication management. Japan, Germany, and Finland are countries with a high score in long-term orientation, managers could expect a better performance in the quality of work and communication from members from these three countries.

5.2. Culture dimensions with negative impacts

Uncertainty avoidance always has a negative influence on project performance when significant. For example, it negatively affects project integration and cost management. Societies with high uncertainty avoidance tend to avoid risks and try to use rules and regulations to create security (Hofstede, 1986). Russia is a country with a high score on uncertainty avoidance (UAI= 95), members from Russia are expected to be less flexible in project cooperation and more willing to spend more money and resources to avoid risks. This is also confirmed during the interviews by project managers.

In the previous studies, uncertainty avoidance was also found to have a negative impact on project schedule and risk management. However, these relationships are found not significant in this paper. The main difference between this paper and the previous articles is the number of countries included in the analysis. For example, Rees-caldwell et al. (2013) only considered the UK and Arab, and Li et al. (2013) only analyzed China, Poland, and Singapore. This limitation made the results of previous studies low in generalizability.

5.3. Findings related to project performance aspects

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more closely tied to each other, while people from collectivism countries care more about their in-group (Hofstede, 1983). Due to this reason, team members are more willing to expose risks instead of hidden problems to protect in-group profits. In terms of project cost management, managers could expect a better performance in high masculinity countries, while lower performance in high uncertainty avoidance countries.

Project schedule and _{scope management are not affected by national culture. While according} to previous research, these two aspects are negatively influenced by power distance and uncertainty avoidance. The information mentioned in interviews with project managers may explain this change. In our interviews, project managers frequently mentioned that the project plans and schedule are not controlled by the project team manager, neither the team members. Especially in the construction industry, with increasing experience in multinational projects, companies are able to set a suitable plan for project teams. There are a certain standard and process for different projects, where project managers and members have to follow. Due to this reason, the nationality and cultural background of individual team members are not influential anymore.

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Table 8

Comparison of results

Project performance Culture dimensions Positive Negative Not significant

Integration Individualism Sounder et al.(1999) Shore et al. (2005) Flynn at al. (2006)

Bredillet at al. (2010)*

Masculinity Flynn at al. (2006) Sounder et al.(1999) Bredillet at al. (2010)*

Power distance Shore et al. (2005) Bredillet at al. (2010) Oswald et al. (2018) Rees-caldwell (2013)

Finding of this paper **

Uncertainty avoidance Shore et al. (2005) Flynn at al. (2006)

Bredillet at al. (2010) * Rees-caldwell (2013)

Scope Power distance Rees-caldwell et al.(2013) Finding of this paper **

Uncertainty avoidance Rees-caldwell et al. (2013) Finding of this paper **

Schedule Power distance Rees-caldwell et al.(2013) Finding of this paper **

Uncertainty avoidance Rees-caldwell et al.(2013) Finding of this paper **

Cost Uncertainty avoidance Shore et al. (2005) Finding of this paper **

Long-term orientation Shore et al. (2005) Finding of this paper **

Masculinity Finding of this paper ***

Quality Individualism Power et al(2010) Finding of this paper **

Uncertainty avoidance Flynn et al. (2006) Finding of this paper **

Long-term orientation Finding of this paper ***

Masculinity Finding of this paper ***

Risk Individualism Li et al. (2013)* Fellows et al. (2015)

Masculinity Result of this paper ***

Power distance Rees-caldwell (2013) Fellows et al. (2015)

Long-term orientation Fellows et al. (2015)*

Uncertainty avoidance Fellows et al. (2015) Zwikael at al. (2011)

Rees-caldwell (2013) Li et al. (2013) Bockstedt et al. (2015)

Communication Individualism Flynn et al. (2006) Finding of this paper **

Power distance Rees-caldwell et al. (2013) Finding of this paper **

Uncertainty avoidance Flynn et al. (2006) Rees-caldwell et al. (2013)

Long-term orientation Finding of this paper ***

* Results consist with previous studies ** Conflict results

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6. Conclusion

This paper conducted comprehensive research on the impact of national culture on project performance. In order to overcome the limitations of previous studies, I linked five culture dimensions according to Hofstede's culture dimensions to seven project performance aspect. In addition to that, 43 countries and more than 10 industries are also included to eliminate the specificity of a country or industry. The key findings show that:

- Masculinity and long-term orientation have a positive impact on project performance when the relationship is significant.

- Uncertainty avoidance tends to have a negative impact on project performance when significant.

- Project quality, risk, and cost are with major impact by national culture. - Project schedule and scope management are not affected by national culture.

6.1. Contributions

Furthermore, the in-depth analysis provided a better view of the impact of the national culture dimensions on the project management performance. In terms of theoretical contributions, first, to the best of my knowledge, there has not been any research on all the cultural dimensions and project performance. This paper provides a more complete view of the impact of national culture on project performance in the field of project management studies. Moreover, different from most of the existing research, this paper analyzed 43 countries and more than 10 industries. This makes the results of this paper more generalizable than previous studies. In addition, this paper highlighted the variation of the influence of national culture on project management. As it is mentioned in previous parts, the development of project management decreased the significance of the impact of national cultures to a certain extent. This can be viewed as a starting point for future investigations.

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level of masculinity, long-term orientation, or individualism. For example, members from Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and Australia are expected to perform better in a multinational project team. However, project management can be more challenging with members from high uncertainty avoidance countries, such as Chile, France, and Greece. In order to eliminate the impact of national culture on project performance, managers could also make a clear project quality standard, budget plan, as well as risk management procedures.

6.2. Limitations and future research

The first limitation of this study is that the research ignored the interactions between each project performance aspect. For instance, the project budget management may potentially influence project quality management, and project scope management could be related to project schedule and cost management as well. Future studies can try to determine the relationship between project performance aspects.

The second limitation is data availability. As mentioned, China is a country with a typical high level of power distance, and the workplace environment is not international enough. These made the data collection process difficult for university students. On the one hand, it is hard to find a project team with members from different countries. On the other hand, it is also hard to get direct contact with top managers as university students. In the future, researchers are expected to put more time in data collection and use more human resources in order to get contact with potential respondents.

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Appendix

Appendix 1

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Appendix 3

Appendix 4

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Appendix 6

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Appendix 8.1 Sample description

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

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Appendix 8.2 Data description

Appendix 8.3 Industry list - Auto Manufacturing - Advertisement - Construction industry - Car Dealers - Education - Entertainment industry - Gas & Oil

- Internet

- Information Technology (IT) - Electronic device

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Appendix 9. Questionnaire and interview questions Practitioner Interview

Dear respondent,

Thank you for agreeing to participate in our research.

We would like to remind you that your answers will be treated with confidentiality. Section A: General questions

A1) What is your nationality and country of origin?

A2) What is your age?

A3)

Sex M F

A4) How long have you been working in Project Management field? In which

companies?

A5) What kind of projects have you been involved in during your Project

Management experience?

A6) In past and current projects, where are the project team members coming from?

A7) Where are the stakeholders, suppliers, or clients of the project you have managed

coming from?

Section B: Impact of national culture on project management performance

B1) During your management experience, are there any nationalities that are

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Integration? (The processes and activities needed to identify, define, combine, unify, and coordinate the various processes and project management activities within the project management process groups.)

More rigorous: Less rigorous:

Scope? (The processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required, and

only the work required, to complete the project successfully.) More rigorous:

Less rigorous:

Time Planning?_{(The processes required to manage the timely completion of the project.)}

Cost? _{(The processes involved in planning, estimating, budgeting, financing, funding,}

managing, and controlling costs so that the project can be completed within the approved budget.)

Quality? _{(The processes and activities of the performing organization that determine quality}

policies, objectives, and responsibilities so that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken.)

Risk? _{(The processes of conducting risk management planning, identification, analysis,}

response planning, and controlling risk on a project.) More rigorous:

Less rigorous:

Communication? (The processes that are required to ensure timely and appropriate planning,

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Innovation Technology?

Section C - Cultural differences in teams: issues and countermeasures

C1) According to your experience in managing multicultural project teams, did you

perceive cultural issues in the following aspects? If yes, please provide some examples.

● Integration ● Scope ● Time ● Costs: ● Quality: ● Risk: ● Communication: ● Innovation technology

● Human Resource (e.g., team cohesion, trust issues, etc.)

C2) Referring to the cultural issues mentioned above, how did you tackle with them?

(What actions did you take?) How do you measure the effectiveness of those actions?

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● Communication ● Innovation technology ● Human Resource

C3) Do you encounter any obstacles (or perceive any side-effects) in applying those

countermeasures? Can you please explain why?

C4) Do you think it is part of the project manager’s job to deal with the cultural

issue? Or someone else should be responsible specifically for such issues? Can you please

explain why?

C5) What do you think are the most important qualities to a project manager that

managing multinational teams?

D1) Do you have anything else you would like to add?

Dear respondent,

You have now reached the end of our questions. Thank you once again for participating.

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Appendix 11. Respondent questionnaires (1).

Chinese

46 A3)

Sex M F

A4) How long have you been working in Project Management field? In which companies?

12 years in China Communication Construction

A5) What kind of projects have you been involved in during your Project Management experience?

Mainly construction projects

China, Cambodia

A7) Where are the stakeholders, suppliers, or clients of the project you have managed coming from?

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Section B: Impact of national culture on project management performance B1) During your management experience, are there any nationalities that are significantly more rigorous or less rigorous than others at:

Integration?_{(The processes and activities needed to identify, define, combine, unify, and}

coordinate the various processes and project management activities within the project management process groups.)

- More rigorous: China

- Less rigorous:

Scope?_{(The processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required,}

and only the work required, to complete the project successfully.)

- Less rigorous:

- More rigorous:

- Less rigorous: Cambodia

Cost?_{(The processes involved in planning, estimating, budgeting, financing, funding,}

- Less rigorous:

Quality?_{(The processes and activities of the performing organization that determine quality}

- Less rigorous:

Risk?_{(The processes of conducting risk management planning, identification, analysis,}

response planning, and controlling risk on a project.)

- More rigorous:

- Less rigorous:

Communication?_{(The processes that are required to ensure timely and appropriate}

planning, collection, creation, distribution, storage, retrieval, management, control, monitoring, and the ultimate disposition of project information.)

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Innovation Technology_?

More rigorous: Less rigorous: (2)

Chinese

35 A3)

Sex M F

6 years

Consulting project in IBM，Business management in Citibank

Chian, UK, Singapore, Malaysia, India, the US

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- More rigorous:

- Less rigorous:

- More rigorous: the US

- Less rigorous: China

- Less rigorous: UK

- More rigorous: China, US

- Less rigorous:

- More rigorous: US - Less rigorous: China

response planning, and controlling risk on a project.) - More rigorous: US

- More rigorous: US

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Chinese

44 A3)

Sex M F

11 yeas, nine years in Danfoss, which is a multinational and Danish-based company and two years in Emerson, an American and one 500 fortune company

Projects related to procurement and supply chain management, such as cost reduction, supplier base optimization and supplier selection

The team members come from different organizations including R&D, quality, operations and sourcing, etc. Hence we normally are organized as a cross-functional team.

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- More rigorous: Denmark, Germany

- Less rigorous: China, Poland, Mexico

- More rigorous: Denmark, Germany

- Less rigorous: China, Poland and Mexico

- More rigorous: Germany

- Less rigorous: China, Poland

- More rigorous:

- Less rigorous:

- More rigorous: Germany

- Less rigorous: Poland

response planning, and controlling risk on a project.)

- More rigorous: Denmark

- Less rigorous: Germany, China

- More rigorous: Denmark

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More rigorous: Denmark Less rigorous: Germany, China (4)

Chinese

35 A3)

Sex M F

Five years in Huawei

Office transaction and fit-out project

China, the Netherlands, Spain, Russia, France

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- More rigorous: the Netherlands, China, Spain

- Less rigorous:

and only the work required, to complete the project successfully.) - More rigorous: the Netherlands

- More rigorous: the Netherlands

- Less rigorous: Spain

- Less rigorous: the Netherlands

- More rigorous: the Netherlands - Less rigorous: Spain

response planning, and controlling risk on a project.) - More rigorous: China, the Netherlands - Less rigorous: Spain

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More rigorous: the Netherlands Less rigorous: China

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Chinese

34 A3)

Sex M F

Five years in Huawei

Software system delivery in the telecommunications industry

China, the Netherlands, India, Romania

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- Less rigorous:

and only the work required, to complete the project successfully.) - More rigorous: the Netherlands

- Less rigorous:

- More rigorous:

- Less rigorous:

- More rigorous:

- Less rigorous:

- More rigorous:

- Less rigorous:

response planning, and controlling risk on a project.) - More rigorous: China

- Less rigorous: the Netherlands

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Chinese

35 A3)

Sex M F

5 years in IMG (international management group) and Luzhou Laojiao

Sports event operation project

France, Malaysia, HongKong, Australia, Germany